Self-Organization Against Trade Unions and the State: A Case Study from Argentina

Abstract

This article explores some current issues related to workers' association in Latin America. It focuses on a particular conflict that took place between precarious workers and a large trade union in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which resulted in the murder of a young leftist militant, Mariano Ferreyra. Against the abstract and sometimes naive views regarding trade union activities, as well as the general assumption of unions' importance, this article argues that an in-depth study of the mechanisms that some trade unions have for workers representation and workers control will reveal how the constraints imposed on collective workers association, effective internal democracy, and workplace actions are more complex than the immediate evidence would show. A close examination of the aforementioned confrontation and murder, even though these are exceptional situations, will provide us with a glimpse of the internal activity of one trade union, which will in turn reveal a great deal about the trade union's core dynamics in Argentina, management objectives, and modus operandi. In so doing, this article will revisit questions about trade union operations that will prove illuminating for worker self-organization and for the academic debate concerning the power of unions or the powerlessness of states, particularly in the Global South.